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 530 APPENDIX in modern times in the Balkan peninsula are traceable to the effect produced by the practice of the criminal code of the Ecloga throughout the Middle Ages. Finally it is worth while to observe in the Ecloga a democratic feature, which marks a real advance, in the interests of justice, on the Justinianean code. The Ecloga metes out the same penalties to poor and rich ; whereas the older law had constantly ordained different punishments for the same offence, according to the rank and fortune of the offender. [Zacharia von Lingeuthal, op. cit., on which (ed. 3, 1892) the foregoing account has been mainly based. The same jurist's Jus Graeco-Romanum, pars 3, contains the extant laws of the Emperors after Justinian (1857). MortreuQ, Hist, du droit byzantin, 3 vols. 1843-7. W. E. Heimbach, Griechisch-romisches Recht, in Ersch and Gruber's Enzyklopadie, part 86. The Ecloga was edited by Zacharia von Lingenthal in 1852 ; there is a more recent edition by Monferratus (1889).— His edition of the Basilica in 6 vols. (1833-70), is the opus magnum of W. E. Heimbach.] 12. THE LAND QLTESTION— (P. 209) In order to comprehend the land question, which comes prominently before us in the 10th century, it is necessary to understand the various ways in which land was held and the legal status of those who cultivated it. The subject has been elucidated by Zacharia von Lingenthal ; but the scantiness of our sources leaves much still to be explained. We have, in the first place, the simple distinction of the peasant proprietors who cidtivated their own land, and the peasants who worked on lands which did not belong to them. (1) The peasant proprietors (x'i'P'Tai) lived in village communities. The com- munity, as a whole, was taxed, each member paying his proportion, but the community, and not the individual, being responsible to the state. To use tech- nical expressions, the lands of such communities are 6jj.6Ki!v(ra, and the proprie- tors are consortes. If one peasant failed to pay his quota, the deficiency was made up by an iin$oi] or additional imposition upon each of the other proprie- tors. This system, invented for the convenience of the fisc, was never done away with ; but its injurious effects in overburdening the land were observed, and it probably was not always strictly enforced. "When a piece of land went out of cultivation owing to the incompetence or ill-luck of its proprietor, it bore very hard on his neighbours that their more successful economy should be burdened with an extra charge. AVe consequently find the Emperor Nicephorus censured for insisting upon this principle of "solidarity" — the aiy-yvov as it was called. It seems, although we have not very clenr evidence on this point, that the principle was now extended so as to impose the additional tax on neighboimng farms, which did not belong to the 6ix6K-qv(Ta. Ba.sil II. certainly imposed the extra charge on the domains of large neighbouring proprietors, whose lands were quite independent of the village community ; but this impopular measure — part of that Emperor's warfare against large estates — was repealed by Romanus III. Under this system of solidarity, each member of the community was directly interested in the honestj- and capacity of his neighbours, and could fairly claim some right to interfere for the purpose of hindering any farm from passing into the hands of a person incapable of making it yield enough to pay his quota of taxation. This claim was recognised by Constantine the Great, and afterwards distinctly affirmed in laws of the 3th century which forbade the sale or alienation of a farm to any one except a farmer of the same village [ricamis). When in later times the fiscal responsibility was laid not upon the vicus, but upon the neighbours of the defaulting farm, ibhe neighbours obtained a right of pre-emption ; and in the 10th centurj' the rights of pre-emption were strictly defined by a Novel ' of Romanus I. 1 Nov. 2, p. 234 sqq., in Zacharia, Jus Graeco-Romanum. a.d. 922.